Task force: HIV funds imperative
Posted on Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A gubernatorial task force announced Monday that it will ask the Legislature for $ 3 million over the next two years to combat the spread of HIV / AIDS in Arkansas.
The Arkansas HIV / AIDS Minority Task Force released its final report recommending that the money be spent to create 15 sites for testing and counseling services in black, Hispanic and Marshallese communities around the state, a statewide campaign to heighten awareness among those groups and to hire staff to supervise the programs.
HIV / AIDS prevention has only received $ 5, 938 each year since 2001, said Tere Roderick of Tillar, who manages HIV prevention for the state Health Department.
“Our state has not addressed this issue,” she said.
Rick Collins of Little Rock, the task force’s co-chairman, noted that the tight state budgets might make money hard to obtain.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” he said. “We hope our state will step up to the plate.”
The task force was created by a 2007 bill sponsored by Rep. Willie Hardy, D-Camden. Its 19 members began meeting in March. The task force has also conducted four public forums around the state to gather data.
HIV is a virus spread through bodily fluids from one person to another, most commonly through sexual intercourse or intravenous drug use. Over time, the virus progresses into AIDS, a disease which affects the body’s immune system.
Since AIDS was identified by researchers, the disease has changed in the United States from one that mostly afflicted homosexual white men to increasingly impacting other groups.
Although just 16 percent of the state’s population, blacks in 2006 accounted for ®, or 51 percent, of the 341 new HIV cases diagnosed around the state, according to the Arkansas Minority Health Commission.
Between 1983 and 1998, whites made up two-thirds of all AIDS cases, according to state Department of Health statistics. Since 1999, blacks and whites have been diagnosed in nearly identical numbers even though whites outnumber blacks more than 5 to 1 statewide.
“The black community has not taken it as seriously as we should have,” Collins said.
Former U. S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders spoke at an AIDS conference at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock later Monday, saying that public education is critical and Americans have to become less inhibited about discussing safe sex.
Elders supports abstinence education, but said it needs to be supplemented with frank talk about condoms.
“Vows of abstinence break down far more easily than latex condoms,” she said.
Condoms should be distributed in prisons and clean needles for intravenous drug abusers should also be implemented, she said.
“We’ve got to use everything we’ve got,” Elders said. “But we’re sitting and moralizing about the issue.”
The task force’s proposed annual budget would include $ 150, 000 a year for two staff positions, office space and supplies and travel reimbursement for task force members.
The 15 testing and counseling sites would cost $ 975, 000 a year. The task force also requested a $ 150, 000 sub-grant for men’s outreach in Jefferson County and women’s outreach in Union County.
A statewide media campaign to raise public awareness about HIV / AIDS through billboards, pamphlets and brochures is budgeted for $ 225, 000 a year, the report states.
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